When I was a kid growing up in a small mining town, the preferred method was to keep a small tree branch jammed into your bike frame. Then you could pull it out and whack chasing dogs on the snout.

Before you condemn me utterly, let me point out that 1. industry towns are full of transient workers who sometimes abandon their dogs, leading to the formation of large feral packs, 2. I was 7 and didn't know any better.

digitalArtform
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2014-08-28T17:06:16Z —
#3

Capital idea!

retchdog
—
2014-08-28T17:13:19Z —
#4

doesn't pack the punch of a hub-mounted gun, but it'll do.

Mister44
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2014-08-28T17:39:54Z —
#5

I ran over a dog once on my bike. I didn't mean to. It was in front of me, and I was looking to the left a bigger, meaner looking dog, when suddenly I felt a bump and it was under my bike and I kept peddling and it went under the rear tire. It ran off, so I think it was ok.

I also ran over a dog the first time I drove a car. True story. First day ever, driver ed, there is this dog in the middle of the road. I got up to it and it wouldn't move. The instructor was like, "Honk at it." So I did, but it sat there sniffing it's butt. "Just keep going slow, it will move." Well, no, it just sat there. But it was small enough I just drove over it and didn't hurt it. We turned around it was still there sniffing the ground or it's butt.

What's puzzling is that apparently whoever came up with this did not anticipate that the reader could not just as easily get his or her own rubber bulb and fill it with ammonia. Was either ammonia or rubber bulbs hard to come by or something?

lt_nemo
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2014-08-28T18:04:59Z —
#9

Wow. Someone in 1882 really, really hated rodents.

incarnedine_v
—
2014-08-28T18:13:29Z —
#10

that or way too many guns. Or both.

retchdog
—
2014-08-28T18:57:52Z —
#11

yeah, i think he might have really shot himself in the foot with that design.

Boundegar
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2014-08-28T19:00:35Z —
#12

lt_nemo said:

Before you condemn me utterly

Why would anybody condemn a kid for defending himself against an aggressive dog? It's not as if the dog was chained up and you were tormenting it. What were you supposed to do, offer him a delicious leg?

That's some very specialized tool right there. A pistol, for cyclists, to use on dogs. Wouldn't a regular pedestrian-against-human model work just as well?

The cyclist gun craze did result in some wonderful ads though. 'I fear no tramp' is pure marketing genius.

Eksrae
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2014-08-28T20:05:03Z —
#16

The Iver Johnson revolvers appear to be so safe, even a 9-year-old can use it.

Glitch
—
2014-08-28T21:27:31Z —
#17

Unless you're using "bike" to mean "motorcycle", I call shenanigans. Personal experience has taught me that if you hit anything of substance on a bicycle, you crash - just the way the physics works. A grazing blow I could maybe see, but no one "runs over" a dog-sized object on a bicycle and doesn't topple to the ground.